


Broken Heart Repair

by AndreaLyn



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 18:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1560548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny leaves Steve alone for three days after he brings him home, broken and bruised, because even though he flew halfway around the world for him, crossing the distance between what they are and what they could be is a much bigger leap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Heart Repair

**Author's Note:**

> Set post 4x21.

Steve doesn’t come to work for three days.

It’s a long three days for Danny, who spends every second worrying that he should check in on him or maybe he should call, but Catherine’s still over there and she’s not coming back and Steve’s pretty messed up both from the torture and the stuff he won’t talk about (Catherine, the Army basically telling him to ship up and shape out). So Danny stays away.

Exactly eighty hours after Danny dropped Steve off at his place, he starts to feel that itch under his skin that lets him know he’s making an idiotic mistake. He stops focusing at work and while it’s not like they’re busy with a case, he nearly spills coffee all over Chin’s precious computer and isn’t paying attention so much.

“Danny,” Chin finally says. “Go.”

“No,” he waves it off. “No, he needs time. The last thing he needs is me over there.”

So he doesn’t go visit Steve even though that itch stays. He cancels dinner with Amber twice, not thinking so much about why he doesn’t want to see her when his every damn thought is focused on Steve. Eventually, it kind of fades into the back of his mind that Steve is home, Steve is okay (not okay), Steve is heartbroken, and why isn’t Danny over there?

He flew around the whole damn globe just to make sure he’d be okay, so why’s he being a coward now?

He knows why.

Catherine’s gone and Steve’s hurting and Danny’s starting to sense old feelings resurfacing that he’d done a damn good job of paving over a long time ago. That night, the choice is made for him, when Danny’s phone rings and he picks it up, assuming it’s Grace calling after her football practice.

“Hey, Monkey,” Danny greets cheerfully, not bothering with the caller ID.

There’s a long silence, the soft echo of heavy breathing, and Danny immediately figures out that it’s not Grace. “Danny,” Steve murmurs, quiet and while the man may have been physically broken over there, he sounds like it’s here that he’s really lost it. Maybe he has. Maybe adding in a broken heart is just too much for anyone, even a guy like Steve. “I miss you, Danno. Where have you been?” 

Danny can feel a pit in his own chest slowly opening up and he wants to dive into it, but he knows those gnawing feelings of want and need and love aren’t what Steve needs right now, so he just stays on the line and he listens.

“Four days, Danny, you fly halfway around the world to see me and you don’t come by?” Steve’s been on some heavy-duty painkillers, but that shouldn’t account for the hitch in his voice. Danny’s pacing, hand balled up in a fist and pressed to his mouth to stop himself from grabbing his keys, dropping everything, and getting to Steve _now, right now_. “I don’t understand, man. Why?”

“I thought you needed time,” Danny finally ekes out. “Cat’s gone and I flew halfway around the world for you, Steve.”

Ever since the building collapse, they’ve been saying those three words to each other, but Danny has to wonder whether Steve’s become fluent enough in understanding Danny and his words and his actions to understand that there are more ways than one to admit that you love a guy. And Danny’s just said it, plain and clear, told Steve that if he comes over, it’s not going to be as his partner, not as his friend.

It’s gonna be as the guy who _loves him_ and he nearly lost Steve the way he has nightmares about, has had nightmares about since North Korea.

“Hey,” Steve breathes out the word and even though it’s over the phone, Danny pretends that he can feel Steve’s breath on his cheek. “When I woke up, you were the first thing I saw.”

“I know,” Danny laughs, feeling like he’s two hundred feet above the earth, soaring with the inevitable knowledge that the ground is fast approaching. “Lucky you.”

“I knew I was safe. I always know I’m safe when you’re around, D. I…”

The breath Steve draws in _hurts_ Danny physically to hear. He knows what’s coming. It could be ‘I need you’, it might be ‘I love you’, but all that Danny knows is he can’t stay away a second longer. His keys are in his hand and he’s in the goddamn car before Steve can manage the words out. 

“I don’t want to be alone, Danny.”

“Tonight?”

“Ever, anymore.”

Cat left, for a good cause, and Steve has to stay in his jurisdiction, but it doesn’t mean he has to be alone. Danny jams his foot on the gas harder than before, determined to get to Steve’s house in a record time. He listens to Steve’s steady breathing as he drives, neither of them saying anything until Danny parks and doesn’t bother knocking, just uses his key to let himself in Steve’s place, finding Steve curled up on the floor next to the sofa.

Danny hangs up, crawling onto the floor beside Steve until their shoulders are touching.

“You uh, you have a bed, you know. And given your injuries, I’m kind of thinking you should be there.”

Steve looks at him and Danny reaches over to trace his fingers over his swollen eye, like he’s reminding himself that Steve will heal – his broken and bruised body, and even his bruised and broken heart. “I thought maybe if I fell asleep next to your bed, I’d wake up and you’d be here,” Steve says, words thick with the drugs. “I was right.”

Danny feels like crying, but he laughs instead and it sounds like a broken sob even though he tries not to let that sympathetic pain out. 

“Go to sleep and I’ll still be here in the morning. I’m just saying, your bed is a lot better for my back, too.”

“I love you, Danny,” Steve gets the words out in a rush. 

These aren’t off-hand, these aren’t coaxed out in the middle of a death scare or spoken in the adrenaline right after. It’s for that reason that they mean more to him and Danny knows he’s not going to be having many more dinners with Amber, from now on. He slides his hand down Steve’s jaw and cups his cheek as he leans in to kiss him, trying to steal away some of that pain so Steve doesn’t have to carry it all himself.

And when he whispers, “I love you too,” against Steve’s cut lip, he hopes Steve knows how much he means it.


End file.
